American Independence and Artificial Intelligence

My progeny reaches the age of majority, rereading an American Catholic classic, diving into AI via my husband’s trade journals... and everything comes together

Independence Day came and went like the rain that swept through the Boston area. Our family did not brave the weather for the late fireworks. We had other things to commemorate. This long weekend we belatedly celebrated a milestone birthday for my second child. I can now say I am the mother of two adult children¹. The tension in that phrase is quite lovely—holding both the passing of time and the constancy of identity.

We are a two-types-of-cake family.

---

You may remember this post by

Joshua Doležal

from the last time we met. Responding to it made me want to reread Death Comes for the Archbishop, which turned out to be an inspired pick for the holiday week. Willa Cather wrote a quintessentially American Catholic book, despite the fact that her protagonist is a French priest and she herself was not even Catholic. Behold the craft of a great writer.

After finishing the story I wrote inside the cover: 

“America is—and always will be—mission country.” 

I sat with this for a while and then realized how America is the name of the magazine published by the American Jesuits. The founders in 1909 could have chosen a name inspired by a combination of faith, politics and art—like the name Dappled Things (which is one of my favorite Catholic literary journals). Instead we have a terse, almost nationalistic-sounding, magazine.

How much has Catholicism affected America in its history and culture? And how has American history and culture affected Catholicism in this country and beyond?

Catholicism is certainly not indigenous to the United States, and given the political climate of today is it tempting to see the Roman Catholic Church as representative of old white men coming to the New World to erase the identities of the indigenous peoples on this continent. However, what Cather depicts in Death Comes for the Archbishop is something that rings more true, nuanced, and compassionate.

American optimism originated as European optimism. Faith flew across the ocean with our first colonists. The impulse of truly good Catholics to convert others was (and is) born of the desire for communion with other people, not the passion to condemn them.

Willa Cather shows us through the lifetime of this priest, but especially when Bishop Latour helps Sada, an old Mexican woman, whom he finds in the freezing darkness huddled against the doorway of the church. Prior to discovering the woman, Latour was lying awake in the midst of his own dark night of the soul.

His work seemed superficial, a house built upon the sands. His great diocese was still a heathen country.

However, he gets up in the night to go to the chapel to pray and discovers Sada, whose abusive white employers have kept her from practicing her faith. She risks everything that evening, and in simply being there she helps the priest rediscover the reason for his work, his raison d’être.

He received the miracle in her heart into his own, saw through her eyes, knew that his poverty was as bleak as hers. When the Kingdom of Heaven had first come into the world, into a cruel world of torture and slaves and masters, He who brought it had said, “And whosoever is least among you, the same shall be first in the Kingdom of Heaven.” This church was Sada’s house, and he was a servant in it. 

Catholic priests wear black as a reminder of mourning and remembrance, but it is also the traditional color of a groom. The priests act in persona Christi. If Jesus is the bridegroom then the Church, her people, are the bride—as personified in Sada. They kneel before the Blessed Virgin as a man and woman, in a state of vulnerability, with a red candle at the altar signifying the real presence of Christ among them—all of this evoking the intimacy of marriage. Matrimony is a sacrament, and sacraments are visible symbols of the reality of God. Cather makes faith real.

---

And yet we have Emily Dickinson’s Poem #185—which pits faith against science.

What affect does technological advancement have on our humanity? Much digital ink has been spilled on AI in particular.² If it’s all doomsday then maybe you’re wondering why AI is being pursued at all?

Enter… my husband's random industry magazines.

This picture should prove that I will read anything that is lying around the house.

This trade journal with an AI-related article somehow resurfaced in our house. The cover story here has to do with Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs)—therapies that include Cellular & Gene Therapy (C&GT), somatic cell therapy, and tissue-engineered products. The human body contains 20,000 proteins and protein-encoding genes, 30,000 mRNAs, 2000 miRNAs, and over 100,000 metabolites. The uniqueness of each patient—cell viability, cell division rate, and consequences to the cells’ state from the patient’s drug exposure—causes continuous variability. AI can iterate processes without physical or cognitive fatigue or distraction, while mimicking human decision-making abilities and emulating the human ability to draw conclusions with incomplete or imprecise information (“fuzzy logic”).³ With highly personalized and effective therapies, health outcomes will change dramatically. We could finally cure cancer. All types of cancer.

But what kind of life will our future selves lead if the safest, most “loving”relationships are with a chatbots? What if the songs and poetry that move our bodies and hearts are made by something soulless?

Maybe the solution is to encourage AI in the realms of health, science and exploration but make the arts and humanities a pure no-fly zones for AI. Take an hard ethical stand now. Why?

Because relationships with actual human beings matter. Because being human is not about being efficient. It isn’t about being a productive member of society. We all have an intrinsic dignity that needs to be acknowledged—and that happens when we develop real human connections.

I work with and advocate for people with disabilities. My child who turned 18 is one of them. His survival depends on a society that values who he is, at whatever capacity he can give back. He is like Sada at the doors of the church. Who will open the doors for him to access the compassion and connection that he needs?

Americans have always valued being Independent. But the future will depend on our willingness to be Interdependent.

I promise that what I write is me. I will try to get my facts straight, but I will make mistakes because that is what humans do. That’s how you know it is me. I depend on your forgiveness.

Signed,

Humanly Intelligent Zina

1. Fun fact: Did you know the age of majority for people in the USA is 18, except in Alabama (19), Nebraska (19), and Mississippi (21).

2. Matthew Hutson wrote an interesting article in The New Yorker entitled “Can We Stop Runaway A.I.?: Technologists warn about the dangers of the so-called singularity. But can anything actually be done to prevent it?” The issue is not just AI but AGI—a higher form of A.I. capable of thinking at a human level in many or most regards. It definitely skews more alarmist so if you like being scared silly then give it a read. Or maybe you like podcasts? Check out “The creator of ChatGPT on the dangers of A.I.” The New Yorker seems to put out a new AI article every issue (like here). But the same can be said ofThe Atlantic (see this recent one).

3. Whitford, William. Manzano, Toni. “AI’s Promise for ATMPs.” Pharmaceutical Engineering. Nov-Dec 2021. Vol 41, #6.